Abstract [en]

Research shows that supportive conversations with elderly who are living in nursing homes isrequested among care personnel, this to satisfy both older people's mental health and socialhealth. The care personnel try to offer the elderly supportive conversation to the extent theyare able to, but they are experiencing obstacles in terms of shortage of time, ignorance and aperceived ambiguity in their profession. The purpose of present study is to describe andanalyze the phenomenon of supportive conversation with elderly living in nursing homes,based on care personnel’s perspective. The study is based on qualitative interviews with thecare personnel working in special housing. The result is analyzed from a phenomenologicalperspective with the lifeworld theory and domain theory as basis. Further on, research is usedto describe and analyze the phenomenon. The results show that care personnel feel that thereis a need for supportive conversation for older people in special housing. However, they don’thave the opportunities to offer this because of shortage of time, lack of knowledge andambiguity about what is included in their work as care personnel. This contributes to theexperienced stress among care personnel and the feeling of inadequacy in their professionalcapacity, which results in a sense of not having the ability to give the elderly a good care.